Sasa Stanisic - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

I wanted to give Mr. Spok the sea, that would be the most wonderful trip imaginable for him. I wrote “Prizewinner!” on a picture postcard, and “Mr. Spok,” and “Igalo.” I congratulated Mr. Spok, but I didn't shake hands with him. That was the most difficult bit. I invited Mr. Spok to our place so that he could shower and comb his hair. After the first shower, I asked him to shower again. I asked the now showered and combed Mr. Spok if he knew how to shave, but he didn't. As part of the prize I gave him one of the two suits in my father's wardrobe and four ties, because I knew how much Father hated ties. I put on the trousers that my parents thought were my best pair. Thus prepared, showered, combed and sober, Mr. Spok and I waited in my parents' living room. I asked Mr. Spok if he could cry at will.

My mother came home first, and she just asked if Mr. Spok was a vegetarian. “I eat anything,” he said, so I gave him an apple, two slices of bread and two eggs, he could cook those for himself later, there wasn't any time now, Father was already coming through the door. I called out in a TV presenter's voice, “Family, we're going to Igalo this year, and we're going wi-i-ith. .” I pointed to Mr. Spok, who began to cry dreadfully. I raised my eyebrows, pleading, and hugged my father, which certainly struck both of us as odd.

“Aleksandar, go to my studio!” he ordered, and Mr. Spok stopped crying. “This is really a social question,” he told me. “The fact is, I'm afraid that only family members can benefit from the syndicate's offers. Mr. Spokovic can't come too. I'm sorry.”

“Couldn't you and Mama adopt Mr. Spok? That would solve two problems at once. He could come to Igalo with us, and I wouldn't be an only child anymore.”

“Those aren't real problems, son.”

“This isn't a real conversation, Father.”

“Give my regards to Mr. Fazlagic.”

“I will.”

“All the same, you haven't written about a wonderful trip.”

“But technically speaking I've done everything right.”

Aleksandar Krsmanović

A wall has fallen down in the better part of Germany, and now only the not-so-good part of Germany is left. The wall was bound to come down sooner or later, that's what everyone says. Uncle Bora the guest worker, every family should have one, says the not-so-good part of Germany is better from his point of view because it pays him, and because there are a hundred houses all the same in a row there, no one feels envious, and there are traffic rules you can understand, and the traffic lights don't just stick, they really can go green, and there's Lothar Matthäus, and there are tampons for Auntie Typhoon. Tampons are little cotton-wool sticks, Auntie Typhoon puts them inside her to slow her down a bit. We can sometimes get tampons here too, but maybe they don't work with people who move really fast, I'm not sure about that.

Now that the business about the wall has been settled, we have AIDS here and a power failure. Happy people are waving black, dark gray and pale gray flags on top of the high wall, which doesn't look at all as if it has fallen over. While they're having a good time up there, other people are still working down below, knocking little stones out of the wall. My Uncle Bora says: the Germans work the whole time.

Germany looks very congested, people everywhere, you can't even see the street anymore.

Here comes the news broadcaster with the neat and tidy hair again. Epidemic, he says; USA, he says; sexually transmitted diseases, he says; another four cases confirmed in Yugoslavia, he says. AIDS, he says, raising an eyebrow. Astronauts are looking through little telescopes now, and someone says: “virus” and “blood” and “fatal.”

Now that the wall has fallen over in the better part of Germany, all the bad things are coming our way! The power failure comes our way too — Granny is alarmed, there's no sound, the TV set just crackles and goes black. It must be something like this when you're alive and then suddenly you're not alive anymore. You feel a bit frightened, and then someone lights a candle. Grandpa does that here, and in the candlelight the faces around the table turn the color of baked potato halves suffering from AIDS.

On a single evening I learn how walls fall down, how people fall down, how even the light falls down; a sickness is always to blame, and once things fall down they disappear. The better part of Germany fell sick and disappeared. I understand about disappearing. AIDS is a proud sickness, it doesn't even recognize small letters, it doesn't bother with anything like coughing and patting the dog. It wants our blood.

I lie on the carpet. Lying on the carpet I can't fall down or cut my finger and get AIDS. All the same, I wait while Grandpa Slavko, Granny Katarina, Auntie Typhoon and Uncle Bora play rummy in the candlelight; I'm waiting to disappear.

Bikers zoom through Višegrad. Austrians, Swiss, Italians. The Germans have the biggest motorbikes. Michael rides a Kawasaki, Jürgen rides a Honda. Čika Doctor says: Germany and Japan have always been good friends, they just don't like to remember it.

Sometimes there are two of them, entirely encased in leather, on one motorbike. The leather bikers drink lemonade in the Estuary Restaurant and say they like our rivers. Čika Doctor — we call him that because he once cut the calf of someone's leg open — winks at us, meaning: it's more than just ordinary lemonade I serve the bikers. If Čika Doctor has no customers to serve, and nothing to do, he sits in the hotel garden, snaps his pocketknife open and shut, and sleeps in the sun.

We've counted fifteen bikers since June, but we aren't always standing there counting the bikers.

There's something of myself in it, says Čika Doctor, letting us in on the secret of his lemonade. He doesn't say which part of himself, and anyway, we'd never be able to give the secret away to the leather Germans, because for ideological reasons words where they live are not the same as here, where no one rides a motorbike like theirs because no one would venture out into the street in that weird leather gear.

Edin and I are sharing a lemonade at Čika Doctor's hotel, sitting there with our legs wide apart and acting as if we were Germans. Hans kugel kluf nust lust bayern meinen danke danke . We do it so that maybe Čika Doctor will tell us which part of himself he adds to the Germans' lemonade.

Tito was taken down from the classrooms today, and Vukoje Worm swore he'd take me apart after school.

The bell rings for the end of the last period. Everyone storms out of the classroom. Vukoje points at me and draws his thumb across his throat. Edin shrugs. I'm right in there with you, he says, that way he'll have to try thumping both of us at once and he'll get tired more quickly.

Edin has some excellent ideas.

Vukoje Worm, whose nose has been broken three times, is waiting in the school yard. He's not alone. Hi, Vukoje, old friend, how are you? I call. Vukoje takes off his jacket, ties his shoelaces, shoves me several times and asks if I'd rather have kicks, punches or throttles. A crowd of schoolchildren surrounds us at once.

Throttles, I say, because there's no such thing.

Good answer, says a tall young man who walks out of the crowd of kids and plants himself in front of Vukoje. Get lost, he tells Vukoje, or my forehead will make mush of yours.

Vukoje stays there, puts his hands on his hips. There's a little line of freckles on his nose. He spits out a thin sideways stream of saliva and wags a finger at me menacingly. Only when Vukoje and his friends jog slowly off do I recognize my rescuer, Damir Kičić. cinest soccer player our town has ever produced; he even went to our school.